Monday, October 27, 2014

Conspiracy w/ Death + ZOMBIES Contest Winner!

Jose Cruz was the first person to enter the Zombies Book Halloween Contest, and his name was also the first one we drew out of the horror hat-- congrats, Jose! So many excellent, eerie entries, it's just a further reminder that THOIA has the best (aka creepiest) followers of any horror blog on the web! I'll be having another contest giveaway in mid November, so don't fret-- you might just win something yet! And as we draw closer to Halloween, it's time to unleash a wicked witch story from the December 1953 issue of Adventures into Darkness #12, (art by George Roussos) --featuring a colony of creaky Count Chocula bats, and a truly painful looking fence impalement!

I don't blame you! There were some good stories there. People went to work!

Congratulations, José Cruz!

I thought the character with the voodoo doll in the first panel was a hag until I saw his name was Ezra.

Poor Sally! They kill her boyfriend, force her to love his killer with magic, and then she gets killed. Just like in the Mister Mystery story, it is the male victim who wants revenge from beyond the grave. Female murder victims are just too nice!

I like how Seth was shown only in silhouette at the end. That was a nice touch.

Congratulations, José. It was good story worthy of a fifties horror tale. I don't know (or care to find out) if it really happened or not (sometimes it is better not to know.)

Concerning "Conspiracy With Death"it has its moments, it has its charm, in fact any tale dealing with the sea, with sailing and with port of call all have natural mystery to them. Sea stories/sea mysteries seem to be a popular though under appreciated genre.

The mysteries of the deep, The Jonah, etc, it all weaves together to make a good tale, though the artwork was adequate but not great. I wonder what some other artist could have done with the story if given a chance.

Congrats Jose Cruz! It was a great story. And also congrats to everyone else who participated in that awesome bit o' contest reading. I looked forward to each and every new comment notification. You folks are awesome.

Man I love the drawing on this one. Much more like fine art than the usual, often quite competent, illustration techniques that most comfortably fit into the practice of sequential storytelling. The loose gestural lines and all the impressionistic, emotional patterns in the water and plants are really interesting. It only kinda fell apart when the visuals were locked into crummy interiors and mundane talking head expositions (and some of those are dynamite). The bottom third of pages six and seven, and all of page four, are really quite mighty.

I do feel like the color hurts the piece, but I don't think it's because the colorist was inept. I do feel like the presentation here is hurt a lot by the fact that the colors are more resilient than the cheap black ink, so their screens are still readily apparent in places where the black pass itself has really started to break down. Some of the sinuous forms of the inking are lost to the more awkward edges of the pasted-in color screen fields, something that would (or should) not have been vying for our attention under the black. Just one more time I would really like to get a look at the original art.

Yeah, I have no issues with the art here either, in fact, I've posted many stories illustrated by Roussos over the years and never heard this much complaining... it's just another style, to each his own I guess.

Thanks again to Jose and everyone that participated in the contest too!

Geez, these people in old horror comics never learn! I mean, you're going to some old goat who lives in a shack by the sea and he's supposed to have magic powers to make all your dreams come true? So the old hag in the hovel in the woods or the guy who lives in the van down by the river wouldn't be able to work miracles without a hitch like this guy maybe can? Just once I'd like to see them think about how far their deals with evil have gotten their wizard for hire!

Interesting that, for once in a while, the "typical witch" is actually a male (a warlock or practitioner of black arts). As if they wanted to add a touch of originality to an otherwise predictable story.

Speaking of originality, I can't help being very surprised that it's the WITCH who actually goes back on the bargain, by raising the fee from $1000 to $10,000 AFTER he and the customer made their agreement. Maybe you get a strong feeling that Duncan doesn't intend to pay him in the first place - especially when he says that as far as he's concerned he got rid of Seth on his own - but "technically," it's Ezra who first does the reneging! And again, it's usually the other way around in these stories.

About Me

Editor / co-editor of IDW's Chilling Archives of Horror Comic Books: ZOMBIES and DEVIL TALES, as well as co-host of the bi-monthly HAUNTED HORROR comic series and HAUNTED LOVE miniseries. (All image scans and photography by me from items found in my own personal collection-- except where noted.)

"...the capital of online comic book horrors... saying "Not the best story THOIA has run" is a bit like saying "one of Beethoven's lesser symphonies!"---Quasar Dragon

"...the object of all horror chicks' wet dreams... a comixkaze of awesome!"---Killer Kittens

"...an online repository of vintage comic fear fare where individual stories from long out-of-print issues are posted in high resolution, page by page. For a fan of EC, Atlas and other Silver Age-era comic companies, it is pure heaven (and hell)..."---Bryan Reesman (Attention Deficit Delirium)